Living the American Dream!!!
Well I guess it is about time I actually write something in here (cos mum has been nagging again!!).
It’s 1st January 2007, and no on e would ever have guessed a year ago that I would be where I am now, doing what I am doing, with who I am with.
I am currently in Santa Clara, California, where it was a very pleasant 18°C today, I have to say I have been enjoying the glorious blue skies and lovely warm sunshine. Certainly beats the weather in ’sunny’ Bournemouth in the winter!
I am here with my fiancé Jasper, who is currently working for Sun Microsystems here. We are getting married in February, in fact in less than eight weeks time, which seems unbelievable, but I am incredibly excited about it.
That’s enough catch-up, now let me tell you about the Americans!!!!
I have been here for just 5 weeks and I have already seen so many amazing things. I have not only been amazed by the beautiful scenery and the wonderful weather, but also with the absolute ridiculousness of Californian culture!
The first job was to disembark from our 11 hour flight on a relatively comfortable Virgin plane and enter the immigration department of San Francisco International airport. Having never traveled to the US before I was not entirely sure if my movie fueled expectations were going to be quite as scary as I thought. Unfortunately it appears that I was well educated by Hollywood, and it was exactly as horrendous as I thought it would be. Jasper and I walked up to the vast immigration desks and were quickly rushed into a new queue together. Obviously the plan had been to go through separately to make sure I wouldn’t have any hassle entering the country with a visa holder. But of course I wasn’t going to argue with the immigration officer with a very shiny hand gun on his hip!
Thankfully Jasper went through first and the guy behind the desk didn’t realise that we were traveling together. I explained that I was coming to the US for a holiday and that I planned to stay for 2 months, at this point the immigration officer seemed to get a tad suspicious, but after a few more questions and a quick mention that I had plenty of money in the bank and he stapled my visa into my passport and off I went.
I walked over the collect our suitcases from the carousel and circled it a few times looking for Jasper, but couldn’t see him anywhere, then huge panic set in, I was now on the other side of the world alone! A million and one things were running round my head, and then I remembered I had my mobile in my bag. I turned it on and prayed it would find a signal, thankfully it only took a few seconds and could text Jas and find out what was going on. He told me he was waiting in a back room to get his paperwork checked. I somehow managed to drag the 4 maximum weight suitcases off the carousel and onto a trolley. I patiently waited for Jasper in the baggage collection area for about 20 minutes, meanwhile everyone else had left and I was starting to get some funny looks from the armed officers, again slightly un-nerving. You would not believe the relief that I felt when I saw Jasper walking towards me, having got his visa sorted. We took our bags through customs, and were out of the airport in 2 minutes.
We were both so relieved that we had made it with no issues. We got in the ‘elevator’ and went up a floor to the monorail station. Waited for the next train and dragged our trolley on. Then we met our first ‘have a nice day’ American, Jack. Jack was our Thrifty car rental representative and was very sweet, made conversation smiled a lot and made me feel much more at ease than the stern immigration guys. We got our keys, went down in the ‘elevator’ to the ‘parking lot’ and found our car!
Well, we were lucky enough to get a Ford Taurus, possibly the most horrifically designed car I have ever seen, and not only that but it was gold!! I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn’t a Hummer, but well, it wasn’t exactly the coolest car around!
After about 10 minutes of tiredly hauling suitcases in and out of the ‘trunk’ we managed to get them all to fit in the car.
Jasper drove, cos there was no way I was going to! We got out of the airport and onto the ‘freeway’, we appeared to be driving in one of the smallest cars, yet we were in a car as big as a Mondeo! I have never seen so many SUV’s and 4X4’s before, I don;t think anyone has any regard for the environment whatsoever!
We drove for about 30 minutes until we found our hotel, thank goodness for TomTom! Our room was on the 2nd floor at the back. The hotel backed onto the railway line, apparently American train drivers really like to sound their horn! I was really impressed with the hotel room, it had a small kitchenette with the biggest fridge I have ever seen in my life and the bed well … it was a Californian king which is 7ft long and 6ft wide, absolute madness!
I know people said to me that things were bigger in America but this was getting ridiculous, it seemed that if you live in the states you must have the biggest car, the biggest bed and the biggest fridge ever!
We spent our first week finding an apartment and getting to know the immediate area. Our apartment is in a complex 5 minutes away from Jasper’s work and is fantastic. There are 3 swimming pools, a 17 person outdoor hot tub, 2 gyms and lots of other fab things. Our apartment is a two bed and has a huge lounge dinner, with 2 balconies off it.
We also managed to find ourselves a fab car, the beautiful dark blue VW Beetle you can see in our pictures. It’s a convertible and is going to be so much fun in the summer.
So that basically all there is to tell about the move. We are pretty settled now and we are really enjoying the weather.
I’ll post another blog soon, with something a bit more exciting!
xxx